You know,
things weren't always as they are today, saplings. Even I, still in my
midday-to-dusk years, can remember a time when gay subject matter was
so taboo that it would appear only occasionally as a fleeting controversial
subplot on L.A. Law. Sure, we had camp, wink-wink gay entertainment
like Designing Women and Paul Lynde to fill the void of
actual, in-your-face queer content, but for the most part the whole messy
same-sex subject was left to art films and the French. It's hard to believe
these days, when everything from must-see-t.v. to car advertisements seems
perfectly happy to foist homos on the unassuming public. But just think:
less than 10 years ago it was not even thinkable to have a gay lead character
in a television show, much less a feature film or major miniseries. One
Rupert Everett and several Will and Graces later, and we're
in a full-blown Cosby decade for homos.

But the
queers had their ways of creeping into the mainstream. Sometimes it was
played for "cosmopolitan" effect, like in Eyes of Laura Mars,
Theatre of Blood, or Day of the Locust, which suggested
that homosexuals were an accepted feature of New York, London, and Los
Angeles. Often associated with fashion or theatre, fags were bandied about
like so much maribou and glitter, simply flashy set-pieces installed to
add a little color. At least this contribution (glamour, eccentricity)
was a step up from the stereotypical "killer homo" that had
populated horror and thriller pictures since the beginnings of the movie
industry; gays were no longer monstrous, they were merely amusing and
at times useful when a throw pillow needed placing or a dog needed its
nails painted.

But the
killer queer wasn't silenced entirely. Usually at the mercy of titanically
misguided filmmakers and in what would ultimately become some of the most
ridiculous thrillers in history, the "out" killer queer made
a brief and unfortunate name for himself. Now that "the gays"
were able to snake their way into mainstream entertainment, it seemed
that the shroud of mystery that generally held the killer homo from being
fully realized could be dropped: instead of shy, introverted momma's boys
(the Norman Bateses of the old times) and chilly disciplinarians
(the Dracula's Daughters of days gone by) who rightly seemed
a bit queer, we now had full-on, card carrying fags and dykes running
around hanging rainbow flags and breaking sodomy laws in between beheadings.
At the time, remember, Hollywood was very new to the whole gay thing,
and less-than-masterful in dealing with queers in a competent way. So
the effect of putting axes and straight-razors into the hands of these
newly "liberated" men and women was, in a word, hilarious.

Enter The
Fan. The centerpiece of one of the most ridiculous and embarrassing
films I have ever seen, Michael Biehn's Douglas Breen tops the
list of Fags Hollywood Didn't Know What to Do With. Imagine a cold-blooded,
manipulative, calculating killer. Imagine him tracking his prey for months
or even years, picking off her network of friends one by one as he infiltrates
her inner sanctum. Imagine him brutally murdering people with a straight-razor
and beating his victim bloody with a riding crop.

Now imagine
all of this madness as committed by Wayland Flowers.

I'm sure
that at the time all of this was considered shocking and irresponsible
and what-have-you. I imagine that as a self-professed film buff and manager
of a website seeking to document queer imagery in horror films I should
seriously consider how damaging this imagery could have been to the gay
population upon its release. But that would mean forfeiting the intense
pleasure that I get from watching this atrocious piece of crap, which
is so clumsy and scattered that it falls over its own feet in trying to
even simply make sense, much less be scary, or compelling, or offensive.
It's the filmic equivalent of a retarded person who breaks something valuable:
there's really no way to stay angry at them for long.

Speaking
of retarded people, Lauren Bacall is Sally Ross, a wizened, tobacco-stained
Hollywood has-been who looks like she's been ridden hard for 40 years
and put away wet. Try though the cinematographer (the unfortunately named
Dick Bush) might, Ms. Bacall looks about the worst she ever has,
despite his employment of every fog filter on the East Coast and one scene
in which I insist he actually shot her through a bowl of milk. Between
drinks and 120's (or as we used to say, "bitch-sticks"), Sally
is mounting a Broadway show the likes of which no one who didn't see Legs
Diamond has ever seen. She'll sing (croak)! She'll dance (waddle)!
She'll charm the pants off every tonedeaf and nearsighted person in the
audience, dammit! The development of this musical is deserving of a film
of its own, but we've got other fish to fry.

Douglas
is a devoted fan of Ms. Ross, and writes to her almost daily. Early on
we see him sucker-punch a lady to steal a pen that had belonged to Ms.
Ross, so we know that he is crafty and not afraid of beating up women
in public (like most gay men I know). He becomes increasingly upset that
Ms. Ross's secretarey Belle (Maureen Stapleton, who apparently
lost a poker game to end up here) is intercepting his letters and treating
him like a typical "fan", and decides to do something about
it: naturally, stalk the secretary in the subway and slash her face with
a razor (I'm sure Ms. Stapleton's agent felt like doing the same thing
after she made this hog). This is but the first of many random and needlessly
risky attacks that Douglas will bestow upon Ms. Ross's entourage, including
her dance-partner-cum-shapely-waisted-escort (whom he stalks and kills
in -- get this -- the West Side YMCA) and her disposable maid (who did
absolutely nothing to deserve her bloody death other than wear the same
outfit in every scene). Between these tacked-on stalk-and-slash scenes
(reportedly added in after the film was rolling due to the success of
Friday the 13th) we get to see Lauren, in all her octogenerian
glory, engaging in such fascinating activities as: smoking; drinking;
reading her mail; smoking; walking on the beach; languishing while drinking;
languishing while smoking; visiting Belle in the hospital (where, for
some ungodly reason, they have nearly mummified her face with the most
overreactive bandaging I've ever seen); talking to Hector Elizondo;
threatening to expose her breasts to the camera in a series of increasingly
hideous purple ensembles. She jokes about being 45 when she's closer to
the cumulative age of her entire chorus line. Oh -- and did I mention
that James Garner is involved in all this? No? Well, no one mentioned
it to him, either -- he spends his 7 on-screen minutes checking his watch
and recoiling from Lauren's whiskey breath whenever they share a close-up.

But let's
get back to Douglas. Considering his trip to the YMCA and his thousand
adoring letters to Sally, it's pretty obvious that this is nothing more
than a Broadway queen who's AWOL from the piano bar with a wild hair up
his ass and a sharp blade in his hip-pocket. But as this is the New Age
of Homo Visibility, the filmmakers decide that we need to actually see
Douglas get sucked off on a rooftop to get the point, so we join him at
a Lounge for Confirmed Bachelors where he effortlessly picks up a cute
guy and gets him home to his rooftop, where he takes his sweet time reaching
for his straight-razor as the poor fella works his magic downstairs. Finally
satisfied, Douglas slashes the sissy and sets his body on fire, adding
a suicide note in his own name to throw the cops off his trail. And you
thought you had bad luck on dates...

So Douglas
gets to attend the big premiere, but only the last number. Fortunately
for us, we get to see a whole lot more, in what ultimately amounts to
the most ludicrous musical performance ever staged in a motion picture.
Thought Xanadu was humiliating? Uh-uh. Never thought you'd see
numbers worse than those in The Apple? Just wait. The musical numbers
in The Fan are tantamount to a multi-million dollar restaging of the "Nothing
Ever Happens on Mars" piece from Waiting for Guffman. When
the crowd leaps to their feet (to clap, not flee the theatre) after Bacall's
walrus-inspired rendition of Marvin Hamlisch's "Hearts, Not
Diamonds" (hands-down the worst musical performance IN THE HISTORY
OF FILM), you half-expect Douglas to scream "CORKY!!! CORKY!!".
Instead, he hangs around the theatre and ambushes Lauren, cornering her
in the theatre after a chase scene that is as dynamic as continental drift
(Lauren's about as fast) and beating her with a riding crop (as her agent
probably did after the film opened). Luckily, Lauren's got a few drinks
in her and is full of spunk, and lets loose with a monologue of Julia
Sugarbakerian proportions, stalling the sissy long enough to get a
blade in his throat. The danger quelled, the camera pulls back, leaving
Douglas alone in the empty metaphor. I mean, theatre.

This film
is just spectacularly bad, no two ways about it. Whether it's Bacall's
wretched singing, Biehn's achingly sincere efforts at acting, the gaping
plot holes, or the bumper crop of embarrassing cameos (including a young
Dana Delaney and a young Griffin Dunne, apparently here
to qualify for his SAG card), this one is a must-see for anyone
who doesn't take the gay serial killer thing too seriously or mind seeing
a classic film actress or two get dragged through the muck of the 80's
trash-thriller wave. Makes you wonder... was Faye Dunaway not available?